We're a family that believes you can do things your own way, and this blog is about our adventures doing just that. We try to spend our money thriftily, be healthy, make things instead of buying them, enjoy the simple pleasures of life, and raise our kids to have values that go against the flow of what they're taught by zombie Hitler. Actually just the things they learn from a consumer-oriented world, but that's bad too.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

My No-Shampoo Experiment

I've always been one of those lazy/natural females who doesn't like to spend much time on a beauty routine or doing my hair. Mostly I just shampoo my hair when I have a shower and leave it to dry naturally before giving it a comb through.

I've never felt my hair looks it's best though and often feels dry and frizzy. I've tried various shampoos and conditioners but because I have quite fine hair most conditioners tend to make my hair look lank and weighed down somehow.

The sheer volume of different shampoos, conditioners and other hair
products in most shops puts me off. I'm not sure I even know what most
of them do. I looked around online and found a simple recipe for making
your own 'shampoo' and compiled what I needed.

Shampoo seems to be a man-made product that works against your body. Your hair produces oil and shampoo washes it away. Your body produces more oil because of this and then you have greasy hair. More shampooing and often other products ensue but then you have to wash your hair more often to combat your body over-producing this oil for your hair.

I don't like spending money (and time) on products for my hair so after reading about people who have tried switching to alternative ways to wash their hair I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

Bicarbonate of Soda
Cider Vinegar
Essential oil (whichever you like the smell of, I picked Tangerine)

I got the squeezy bottles from Lakeland (2 for £4), the essential oil from Holland and Barrett (£4) and I already had the other stuffs.

Mix together the vinegar and soda in a vessel bigger than I used (I forgot that it'll froth up and escape if you let it) and then add a few drops of oil to make it smell less vinegary.

Put it inside your squeezy bottle and you're good to go. The mixture needs shaking before you use it because the oil and vinegar settle.

I really didn't know what to expect when I first washed my hair with my new concoction. There was no lather like shampoo and my hair didn't have that nice silky feeling you get from shampoo either. Those are the things I missed.

Other than that my hair smelled great as I was washing it. It also dried quicker for some reason. Best of all my hair felt incredibly soft and looked thicker just after the first wash.

There's an alternate recipe (I begrudge using the word recipe if it doesn't make something I can eat) that uses lemon juice instead of vinegar that I'm going to try when this runs out.

Interesting Fact - Seems like folks in America like to call this experiment a No-Poo experiment...

I've been washing my hair this way for 10 days so far and I have to say I
like my hair this way. I'm going to carry on with this experiment for a
month and then try a week of shampoo again to compare. I'll post again
with hair pictures to see if there's any visible differences.